NEW DELHI: A Coordinated operation of Military Intelligence (MI), Intelligence Bureau and UP Special Task Force (STF) has busted an ISI espionage module in Meerut, which had successfully cultivated moles deep inside the Indian Army establishment. Asif Ali, 52, a resident of Delhi Gate, Meerut was picked up by the UP STF on Saturday and secret army documents along with a Pakistani debit card and a mobile SIM card was recovered.
With Asif’s arrest MI has also unearthed a Hyderabad espionage link. Sources said Naib Subedar Patan Kumar Poddar, who was earlier arrested on August 6, 2014 from Hyderabad was recruited by Asif. Poddar, posted at 151 MC/MF detachments at the Secunderabad was passing crucial information to his ISI handler since July 2013 before MI caught him. Sources said besides, Army documents and maps, STF recovered bank deposit receipts in the name of Patan Kumar Poddar from Asif’s residence which establishes the link. They have also seized two photocopies of a passport in the name of Nazakat Hussain provided by a Karchi resident, Abid, three cellphones, two data cards, six SIM cards and two memory cards .
Sources said MI had been tracking Asif’s trail for the last six months following a tip off that several Muslim youth in the region were in touch with ISI to ship secret military documents through a handler.
Sources said during interrogation, Asif revealed that he was married to a Karachi based girl and sometime in 2006-2007, during one of visits, he was introduced to ISI officer Jahid. Asif told interrogators that Jahid recruited and trained him. He was also given a Pakistani debit card to finance India activities.
Asif claimed that he had transferred Rs. 10,000 in Poddar’s SBI account in Amroha, Uttar Pradesh. He also revealed that he was getting classified Army documents from Madan Mohan Pal, a retired Subedar, who was arrested in December last year. Pal is learnt to have provided information related to vital Army installations and other operational details.
Asif has admitted that he made at least 15-20 trips to Karachi. He also told interrogators about three transactions in Pal’s bank account. Asif said that his Pakistani handler used to deposit money in his debit card account to pay the recruits.
The terror mastermind also admitted to providing a laptop to an Army man’s son in Babina, Jhansi, after he returned from a trip to Pakistan sometime in May 2014. It is suspected that Asif was planning to recruit him for the purpose of digging for more documents for ISI, as immediately after buying the laptop Asif informed his handler about using a Pakistani SIM card.